Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Iran's state TV says the country's Revolutionary Guard has captured a U.S. drone after it entered the Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf.

The Revolutionary Guards said they had brought down a ScanEagle aircraft - one of the smaller, less sophisticated drones employed by the Americans.

The ScanEagle drone is a low-cost, long-endurance aircraft built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing.

The Revolutionary Guards are an elite unit of the Iranian military which operate their own naval forces.

Iran claimed in 2011 it brought down a CIA spy drone after it entered Iranian airspace from its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Wall Street Journal alleges this week that the US has ramped-up its number of spy drone missions over the Bushehr nuclear reactor ever since fuel rods were unexpectedly discharged from the facility in October, just two months after the facility became fully operational.

Last month, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee, wrote to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to complain about repeated U.S. violations of Iranian airspace, describing them as "illegal and provocative acts".

The United States and Iran are locked in an ongoing dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies believe Tehran is trying to develop an atomic bomb, while Iran says its program is purely peaceful.

Israel has threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear sites if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop its nuclear activities.

In October, Israel shot down an Iranian-made drone launched into the Jewish state by Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah.